People say: idle curiosity. The one thing that curiosity cannot be is idle.
Interpretation
Curiosity is an active pursuit of knowledge, not something that can be passive or idle.
This quote emphasizes that true curiosity drives individuals to seek out knowledge and understanding actively, rather than merely existing without purpose. Leo Rosten's assertion that curiosity cannot be idle highlights the importance of engagement and the relentless pursuit of discovery, suggesting that a genuine curiosity always propels us towards exploration and learning.
In practice
Using this quote during a motivational speech about the importance of lifelong learning.
Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.
I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.
I came to believe it not true that "the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one." I think it is the other way around: It is the brave who die a thousand deaths. For it is imagination, and not just conscience, which doth make cowards of us all. Those who do not know fear are not truly brave.
The fellow who laughs last may laugh best, but he gets the reputation of being very slow-witted.
Words sing. They hurt. They teach. They sanctify. They were man's first, immeasurable feat of magic. They liberated us from ignorance and our barbarous past.
The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make a difference that you lived at all-using the talents that God has given you for the betterment of others.
The problem with taking offense is that it's really hard to figure out what to do with it after you're done using it. Better to just leave it on the table and walk away. Umbrage untaken quietly disappears.
This is a wise, sane Christian faith: that a man commit himself, his life, and his hopes to God; that God undertakes the special protection of that man; that therefore that man ought not to be afraid of anything.
Remember that the good angels do what they can to preserve men from sin and obtain God's honor. But they do not lose courage when men fail.
It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes to that siren until she allures us to our death.
I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.
Every minute of every hour of every day you are making the world, just as you are making yourself, and you might as well do it with generosity and kindness and style.
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